


Endure

by nonky



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Post Episode: s03e17 Maelstrom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: He cordoned off Apollo's Viper with a few tool carts, and made it clear he was going to putter around nearby until the CAG could bring himself to admit he'd landed his bird and outlived Starbuck.





	Endure

Galen Tyrol wouldn't have recognized the man who landed Apollo's Viper, without the experience of seeing Bill Adama drag himself from his deathbed after he'd been shot. He could see lines and gouges of loss cut into the formerly handsome young pilot, angled to show mourning for a lost Starbuck. 

Starbuck had disappeared so many times they were all breathing shallowly, waiting for the surprise ending. She had to outdo a lot of pretty amazing returns. It had to be difficult to follow salvaging a Cylon Heavy Raider or delivering the Arrow of Apollo.

We'll give her a few minutes, Tyrol told himself. He looked at the clipboard he had ready, and laid it aside. Lee Adama was going to need more than a few minutes. He was upright and moving just enough to be physically okay, but not needing a medic didn't mean anything now. There was nothing on the ship that Apollo needed.

"No one told you to stop working," he barked. "Come on! Pick it up!"

He cordoned off Apollo's Viper with a few tool carts, and made it clear he was going to putter around nearby until the CAG could bring himself to admit he'd landed his bird and outlived Starbuck. 

The seal on the canopy cracked, but Chief looked over his shoulder and waved away anyone going to impose on whatever the man inside had to do to face the rest of his life. Lee had his helmet off, his bare hands knuckled to the glass of the canopy. His head was down, either praying or cursing. Probably both together, and the air of the deck was still humming with the energy of those screams from directly after Starbuck had gone up. The silence was audible above the sounds of people trying to work with clotted throats and horrified empathy. 

Not everyone had loved Kara, and her loud and crass outbursts had surely embarrassed and irritated more than a few people. But no one was going to ignore the symbolism of losing their rebellious, mad pilot who always came back from impossible missions with a bigger ego and an impossible prize.

Without looking too closely, Chief did the one thing that might give Adama the illusion of comfort. The pilot hadn't returned safely to his home on Galactica. His home was somewhere out in the stars, scattered with the ashes of her loyal Viper. He'd come back alive, and was being torn to shreds from inside his body. 

"You let me know when you'd like some help there, okay sir? The knuckledraggers have my wrenches scattered like cavemen with animal bones," he called out. 

His very quiet update to Galactica actual got Tigh, who was solemn. 

"I have Apollo on the deck but he needs some time. He's in one piece. I'll make sure he's not alone."

"Does he - Is he asking for anyone?" Tigh couldn't say Dee's name, and Tyrol had to imagine the Old Man was taking some time in private. Normally a married man might be comforted if his wife could be excused to see him, but this was more volatile. 

"He's not talking right now, Sir. I'll stay put myself and let you know," he said.

Setting the example for the deck crew, he made a lot of noise sorting the tool kits by size, bitching about carelessness to no one in particular. Tyrol kept the corner of his eye on the cockpit, watching for sudden movements. Pilots went out with a sidearm, knowing it was mostly useless if they were captured except as their last escape. 

If he let Apollo shoot himself on his deck, Starbuck would never forgive him. 

He chose to believe the man would survive this, given a little space to cope with the initial chasm of loss. People were stronger than they knew. If anything of Kara Thrace could linger, she would be whispering filthy jokes into Apollo's ear then. 

Lee sat up, too quickly. He was obviously suffering, his face twisted in frustrated agony. His hands were empty though, bare fists striking out wildly in all directions for a few seconds before he collapsed forward and hid his face. Tyrol threw a couple of wrenches to add to the cacophony and drown out any words that slipped out with the increasingly harsh breathing from the Viper. 

Seeing his chance, Tyrol blocked the wheels and started checking out the exterior of the plane. It was a little beat up, but nothing on it was damaged. The paint job had been cooked off by the heat of the storm, and there was a greasy residue. 

Lee had kept going after her, close as he dared, flying through Starbuck's death. Tyrol put his fist to his mouth and swallowed hard. The crew liked seeing Lee and Kara together, the rightness of it giving all of them confidence. But this price was horrendous. No one should love so deeply getting blown up together seemed like the best option. 

Tyrol wasn't sure where Sam was, or if he knew his wife had just died. Dee was on duty and had heard her husband howl outrage to the universe for the loss of another woman. These people - these extraordinary human pilots - were not even married to each other. Gods, what a frakking mess. 

He stood up and went back to the tool kits. There was a flask of his brew hidden in the bottom drawer. It was flammable but most of the flight deck was a collection of dangerous objects passed around. His whole job was slingshotting human beings into a void. The utility of having a little booze ready was worth the risk. 

Tyrol pushed the stairs the remaining few feet to Apollo's Viper. He climbed up slowly, giving the option of yelling at him to go away. Lee would never be that rude, but he wasn't being an officer now. He was reacting. 

He cleared his throat at the top, sitting to slip the flask into the gap. "Have a drink, sir," he suggested gently.

With a fumble, Lee took the bottle and held it. His face was tensed and he had to blow out before he could open his jaw to drink. There were smears of sweat over his skin, and a bloody smear by his mouth. 

It looked like he might vomit before Lee swallowed. He capped the flask and handed it back. His empty tone was painfully hollow. 

"I lost her, Chief."

"You went with her as far as you could," Tyrol said evenly. "She knew you would. I'm sorry for your loss."

The word made Lee crack a little, but he finally moved to open the canopy. He didn't move to get out, but it was heartening to see he was fighting the shock.

"It feels right the bird went with her. Out of all the pilots I've ever seen, she lived and breathed with that plane. I don't know how I could have painted a new name on her."

Lee's fists clenched, his shoulders jerking as he fought back some memory. Tyrol knew what happened now. The good memories sharpened and the bad ones ached. Lee would try to hold on to them all with both hands. He would fail, because human memory resisted freezing moments in static memorials. He would let a part of her go, and grieve all over. It wouldn't paralyze him forever, though there would be moments.

"I know it won't feel like this to you, but Kara would be glad you're still here," he said to Lee. "She'd want you to drink, get some sleep and look after yourself."

The harsh, bitter laugh was cutting and loud as thunder across the deck. Lee gritted his teeth and snarled, "She should have thought of that before - Frak her and her stu - Godsdamn her. Kar-"

Tyrol leaned in as the man started to hyperventilate, unable to say her name in anger. She had crossed the line from humanity to sainthood, and he didn't know if Lee would ever say her name without shaking. He shook the oxygen mask loose from the helmet and urged Lee to hold it to his face until he could breathe. 

They sat for a few minutes longer, Lee's blank gaze running along the deck for a Viper that wasn't expected back. He probably wasn't even aware he was looking for her, but he'd see her from a distance or through a crowd in random moments. Knowing Kara Thrace, Tyrol couldn't think of anyone more likely to get away with haunting the ship.

"Chief? I need you to do me a favour."

"Yes sir. Anything you need," he replied immediately. It wasn't clear if it was personal or not, but no one would say no today.

"I can't see a godsdamned thing. I need you to walk me out of here," Lee said.

The blur of a world still around him would give way to tomorrow's harsh reality of carrying on, but for now it might allow some rest. Tyrol nodded. 

"I can do that. We'll get you home," he said, forgetting for a moment home included a wife who was alive. "Or if you wanted to go see the Old Man."

"No, I can't do that right now. I'm just - I'm blind. I don't remember if I could see when I landed. I want to lie in her rack, drink, and pass out."

Alarm shot through his body, and Tyrol was about to call for a stretcher. Lee snagged his jumpsuit by the front and pulled him back firmly. 

"Chief! My father lost her, too. He can't handle seeing me rolled up to Cottle. Just help me buy a few hours to myself. I'll go then. I promise I'll go then. I didn't hit my head. I'm not injured."

"Okay, we'll give it a while," Galen said slowly. 

He tried to be careful but there was no grace left in the man who'd launched earlier with the heedless confidence of a god flying with his goddess at his side. Lee made a sloppy climb down the stairs and Tyrol supported him as if the issue was as simple as a twisted ankle. 

People made way, avoiding eye contact. Lee was holding the flask, drinking from it when he could get it coordinated with their jerky steps. He kept it as the deck chief propped him on a wall and opened the hatch to senior pilot's quarters. Lee no longer had a bed here, though rumours said he'd been welcome in Starbuck's when he could slip away from Dee. It felt like an answer that was too easy, giving the stain of an affair when they'd been a lot more than their married selves.

Tyrol looked at the man in front of him, slouched in an absurdly golden flight suit and struggling to keep breathing. He reconciled something inside himself, and decided anything that got Lee Adama through this day had to be a good thing. If he needed to hide from his wife in his dead lover's bed, at least he'd never notice the empty holster on his leg. Tyrol would return the gun when there was less danger of an act of desperation. 

He got Lee moving again, nearly dragging him across the empty room with Lee's direction. Starbuck's rack looked like her personality and Lee bedded down into it like a child delivered home from being lost. He clutched at the unmade covers and shivered despite the flight suit that had to be uncomfortably warm. 

"I didn't want her to die," he said blankly.

"I know, sir. She knew you cared," Tyrol said patiently.

He wondered if he should try to get the flask away, and decided to leave the Captain with it. His tolerance wouldn't let him lapse into alcohol poisoning without more than that. Starbuck had trained him well to be a frakked up pilot. She'd probably been better training for Lee surviving a war than War College. 

"If she had to die, I thought it would be here. We'd curl up sharing the pillow, and I could hold her," Lee continued, his voice going toneless with numbed emotion. "If there was nothing we could do, and the Cylons were coming, I'd let her fall asleep hearing my heartbeat. I promised I wouldn't let them take her again. I had some pills that would make it go quietly. It was the only time she was ever quiet."

Anyone else and Galen might mention the living people who were probably anxious for Lee's sanity and would gladly comfort him. Instead of rattling the chains of Kara's ghost, he waited until the pilot simply dropped off to sleep with tears leaking down her pillow. 

Maybe Starbuck would complete her most spectacular return yet by the time Lee woke up. Tyrol waited until a teary nugget passed in the hallway, handing off the gun and putting him in charge of monitoring the CAG carefully and guarding his privacy. 

A few hours later, Tyrol heard Lee was in CIC, showered, functioning and giving a painfully exacting report of Starbuck's death for the record. It sounded less like recovery and more like the rote focus of a dying soldier in a last desperate stand. 

Tyrol wondered if Kara Thrace would have been happily helped out of life with an overdose, even one delivered in her own bed by her lover's hand. He imagined what mental strain had been repressed to allow the CAG to keep working. He never spoke about it, and suspected Lee didn't remember his confession. 

Kara hadn't wanted to be taken away by the Cylons, so she'd done it to herself. It was tragic, but it fit the pattern of her life. Her only mercy was saved for Lee, outpacing him to death and giving the Old Man his son back. She had finally surrendered her claim on him, and then only by dying so he could see there was no hope because he was a firsthand witness.

Lee Adama's vision returned as mysteriously as it had abandoned him, but anything boyish had worn away permanently. Tyrol wondered if that bottle of pills was somewhere safe, promising relief when missing her thawed Lee's denial.


End file.
